I work for a software company in a rural part of the southern states. I've worked for this company for nearly 10 years. I'm good at my job, I know it better than 80% of the people working there, I'm on a lot of specialized skill sets that no one else is on in the company. I don't want to pretend like I'm a perfect employee. I make mistakes. I'm super burnt out. I get a lot of customer complaints for being “rude.” I'm pretty aggressive when customers fight me on issues where I know I'm right or when they fail to participate in solving their own issues. I often have to repeat myself five or more times because my customers don't really listen to me, and I get cussed out a lot during our busy periods for things completely outside my control. I also have daily interactions with customers who tell me they had to speak to 2-3 people before they reached me and got someone who “knows what they're doing” but management never really hears about those interactions.
I used to make a lot more than my co-workers, and when I say a lot more, I'm talking several dollars per hour more than they were. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things but it made me feel valued. We recently bumped our base pay up for all members of the company and now I'm making only a dollar more than new hires after nearly ten years of working for this company. I'm fine with that in practice. I don't think you should have to work at the company I work for nearly ten years to make the kind of money I'm making. I feel like since that change though, I've felt a kind of bitterness that I don't often feel. I feel robbed of a decade of my life. And it feels like nothing I did until now even mattered.
I really want to quit this job. It feels soul crushing. But I live in a rural part of the US and I don't have the luxury of just moving. I have enough savings to last for about six months without finding more work.
I honestly don't feel like I'm capable of giving my best to this job any more. It has great benefits for the area I live in and the pay is enough to support me. I'm not some kind of social recluse incapable of working any other profession, but I'm not really experienced in a lot of other work either. I tend to stay at my jobs for very long periods of time. Nearly ten at this one, nearly seven at the last.
I don't really know what to do. I just know I'm miserable in this situation, and I don't really think I can improve because the quality of the job isn't improving and my justification for sticking with it is based on just surviving and making ends meet.
I feel pretty trapped in making a safe bet in what I know pays the bills, and has decent benefits, and wanting to just do anything else just to see if I'm clinging to a sinking ship.
I guess I'm writing this because… not every job in the world is some overt, draconic awfulness. I can't be the only one trapped in these kinds of decisions. Some jobs just grind you down over a long period of time and even though you know you're being crushed… it feels like picking between how you want to be crushed to death.